The Columbia Icefields

On Friday Aunt Lawana and Uncle Reid took us out to the Columbia Icefields. It is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Fairmont Springs and I slept for about 3 hours of that haha. To get out there you have to drive through the Rocky Mountains. It was insane and really beautiful! The mountains had a bit of snow on the tops and some of the trees along the way were either a dark green or a bright yellow. Fall is such a beautiful time of year to visit the Northern Hemisphere. It’s so much different to New Zealand.

That’s the glacier in the back there. In 1844 the glacier was right where I am standing. You can see how far it’s receded since then. Just like Bryton’s hair… Hahaha just kidding. Calm down.

When we got to the Icefields it was freezing. I forgot to check the temperature while we were out there. But our tour guide said that it can get to -50 degrees during the winter. That’s ridiculous really. We got tickets to go out on the glacier and they take you out on this huge ice explorer bus. There are only 23 of these buses made and 21 of them belong to a company called Brewsters who run the buses for the Columbia Icefields. The other 2 are with some other snow thingy (I wasn’t really listening). They also cost about $1.5 million to buy. For the amount that they cost, they could probably do with a clean because I got so much dust on my clothes. Sort your stuff out, Brewsters.

Driving along the glacier was pretty crazy. The buses can only go to a maximum speed of 18 km/h. The tyres are HUGE but it’s definitely the safer way to get along there.

The glacier is about 3 different colours: white, blue, and brown. Apparently a lot of people have blamed the buses for the brown marks on the glacier, but it is actually from the soot from the forest fires they have in the area.

I was trying to get a photo and this woman decides to stand RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Literally, about 1 inch from my arm and I was so annoyed! She must have felt my eyes because she moved. She’s lucky.

It was so difficult to walk along the ice. It was really slushy and the wind was fighting against us. It blew me backwards and side to side.

Before I fell flat on my face… Haha just kidding. But it you had to be really careful walking along here. I almost slipped a couple of times. They check the grounds everyday to make sure it’s safe for tourists to walk along and they put cones out around the areas that aren’t safe. Even then you have to watch out for little pools of water where the ice has melted during the day. The top half of my left foot dropped in the water and I nearly died of hypothermia… Haha jokes. But it was FREEZING.

The water is safe to drink because it’s pure ice.

On the way to Banff we stopped along the road to get photos of the scenery. You really can’t imagine how beautiful it is until you see it with your own eyes.

The photos don’t do it justice, but the streams along the way are bright blue. The water comes straight from the mountains and it’s beautiful!

It was a long day and Bryton caught me mid-yawn. If I cared about my dignity so much I wouldn’t upload this. But it’s funny.

It really was a spectacular drive. One of the most beautiful places on earth.

Today’s my 24th birthday (ugh) and I didn’t feel like doing anything. So we had breakfast at the hotel and I went back to bed until we had to check out haha. On our way back to Calgary we walked through Banff town center. It was super cute. Reminded me a lot of Queenstown. We stopped at this place called Beavertail. They make a pastry type thing with different toppings. I got the hazelnut spread and bananas. I didn’t think I’d like it so I told Bryton he could share it with me. Welllll I ate about 3/4s of it all by myself and only shared some with him out of obligation haha. It was so flippen good! And the pastry was lite. It was delicious.

Bryton doesn’t know how to eat without getting food all over his face. He didn’t know he had chocolate around his mouth when I told him I wanted to take photos of him. Isn’t he just the cutest!!? That’s my husband.